Bedtime Stories

Sometimes I wonder, Who are these people and how did I get here? JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL's birthday party (thrown by his BFF, JAMES COPPOLA), at Happy Ending on April 24, was one such occasion. I wound up in an inversion of the TALKING HEADS song "Once in a Lifetime." There was no beautiful house or beautiful wife. Instead there was a man in a dirty white outfit, with blackened teeth, a giant doughnut on his head, and an éclair where his penis should have been. He was not-so-gently roasting the beaming birthday boy, who sat nearby in a pink shirt and tie, looking for all the world like a naughty schoolkid who really wanted a spanking.

The man in the outfit was the hilarious DOCTOR DONUT. He couldn't seem to get Mitchell's name or claim to fame right, addressing him in a faux posh British accent"John Catherine Zeta-Jones Mitchell!" Donut insisted that "John Cameron Stella Kareem Abdul-Jabbar" was famous for some "drag queen movie""What was it? Mrs. Doubtfire? No? Oh yes, Hedda, Queen of the Desert"and said Mitchell's performance in Hedwig and the Angry Inch was the best since that of PATRICK SWAYZE, the "ultimate drag queen," in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.

The roastee was beet red and teasingly countered, "You've taken the joke too far!" Donut apologized, or rather, feigned apology: "They told me to roast you! Tell him I love him!" After Donut finished, the WORLD FAMOUS *BOB* and DIRTY MARTINI twirled their titties in his happy face; BITCH of Bitch & Animal played the violin and sang "Happy Birthday," and three boys in tighty whities popped out of a "birthday cake" and dry-humped him for what seemed like three years. Mitchell, later: "I didn't even get a hard-on. I was too nervous!" Me: "That's OK. We all got one for you." New York seemed like its old sleazy self again.

Two other beacons of East Village sleaze, the Hole and the Cock, are temporarily disappearing. The Cock has been downgrading the neighborhood on Avenue A for eight years, but their landlord won't renew the lease. The Cock is moving into the Hole (that sounds so dirty), which is being dismantled Fridaythe night of the last Mad Clams party, where clubbers can strip away the graffitied walls. By mid July, the perfect re-creation of the Cock (with brand-new bathrooms and the same old rent boys and puddle of jizz on the floor), with a new downstairs basement space, reopens.

East Village sleazebags have been invading posh West Side club Marquee for the past few weeks, courtesy of crazy promoter LYLE DEREK and his roster of maniacs, LILY OF THE VALLEY, BOY GEORGE, and MISS GUY (who's still recovering from having all his CDs stolen at the end of the night). They rubbed shoulders with last week's guests KELLY OSBOURNE, DEBBIE HARRY, and NINA HAGEN. The entire senior class of East Village High was there (will these people ever graduate?), including TRAVER RAINS, RICHIE RICH, BROOKE WEBSTER, Toilet Boy SEAN PIERCE, DJ ALEXANDER THOMPSON, KENNY KENNY, AMANDA LEPORE, MICHAEL T, and LADY BUNNY. In between Debbie's too brief performance (she wore a spiky wig and a zebra-striped dress, recalling her Hunter days, and looked unbelievably good for a woman of a certain age) and Hagen's surprise show, I hung with a bunch of downtowners who would probably get turned away from Marquee under normal circumstances (myself included): MISSTRESS FORMIKA, one of THE TWINS, JENNY, Fifibear's TINA and ARHLENE, and photog cutie CONRAD VENTUR. We had a complimentary bottle of vodka, so I lost my bottle service virginity. We didn't know what to do, how much to pour, whether to put it in the ice (no), and couldn't locate the glasses. Formika: "We're too low-class for this joint!" That we are. Now excuse me before I throw up on this nice couch.